Some say I speak in parables. The reality is far more complex. Within these walls you may find musings on philosophy, theology, politics, and Christian apologetics (without parables -- I'm a much more competent straight-talker than storyteller).

Forthcoming Commentaries

This is a list of all the information I've been able to find about forthcoming commentaries on books of the Bible. I have organized it by commentary series in this post, but if you'd like to see the same information organized by book of the Bible, you can find that here.

If you have any information about forthcoming commentaries that you do not see here, please leave a comment or send me an email at the link at the top of the sidebar. I don't necessarily remove volumes just because they are published, but if something is out and I don't have a publication year listed, I do appreciate knowing about it so I can update that.

I also have an ongoing series reviewing commentaries, which you can find here.

Note: I do update this list whenever I get new information about a forthcoming commentary. I'm not so good at removing forthcoming commentaries when they are published. So don't think the presence of non-forthcoming (because published) commentaries mean it's as out-of-date.

I
was browsing around the web last week during a break from grading, and
I happened upon three or four pieces of information about forthcoming
commentaries that I thought were worth collecting in one place. Don't
ask me where I found all this. It's all publicly available, but it's
all from different places, and I didn't save links to any of them. Some
of it was from scholars' online vitas or their institutions'
descriptions of their ongoing research.

The NICOT series is one
of my favorites, and one important book that I haven't even had an
inkling of who would be doing it is Psalms. I've found out that three
authors will be working on it together. The introduction and commentary
on Psalms 1-41 will be by Rolf Jacobsen. The commentary on Psalms 42-63
and 107-150 will be by Nancy deClaisse-Walford. The commentary on
Psalms 64-106 will be by Beth LaNeel Tanner. I'm unfamiliar with all of
these people, but a few web searches indicates that they seem to be
earlier in their careers. DeClaisse-Walford has already published two
books on the Psalms, and Beth LaNeel Tanner has at least one. The NICOT
Psalms will only be one volume, which is a little disappointing given
that it's three times as long as Genesis, which they devoted two
volumes to, and Waltke's two-volume Proverbs that just came out is as
complete as anyone would ever want a commentary to be, on a book a
third as long as the Psalms. Several of the most recent commentaries in
this series give as much depth as anything but the most technical
commentaries might give, but it seems they won't be doing that for the
longest book in the Bible (according to how the English canon counts
it, anyway; the Psalms present themselves as five books in the
original).

Last I had heard, Douglas Stuart would be doing the
NICOT on Zechariah. I was really looking forward to this, because I've
liked his work on Hosea-Jonah (WBC) and Malachi (in a three-volume
series on the Minor Prophets edited by Thomas McComiskey), but
apparently it's been reassigned to Mark Boda, who released the NIVAC on
Haggai-Zechariah last year. I haven't looked at Boda's work, but almost
all the Old Testament NIVACs have been excellent, and I've come to
trust the Old Testament editors for that series. I'm guessing this
NICOT volume will be pretty good. The Old Testament editors have been
making good decisions in the later volumes. [Update: I
have since heard that Stuart is revising his Hosea-Jonah for WBC and
doing Micah-Malachi for them while he's at it. I don't know if it will
be a revision of the original or a new commentary entirely. I suspect
the latter. Either way, we get to see Stuart's work not only on
Zechariah but on all the Minor Prophets he hasn't commented on
previously.]

Boda is also working on the EBC Judges for the
revamped EBC series (that keeps getting delayed). The only other EBC
replacement I know of will be Andreas Koestenberger's Pastoral
Epistles, which I'm certain will be of the highest quality. As for
Boda's Judges, that book seriously needs better coverage by
evangelicals, so this can only help. [Boda's vita also lists him
working on a Chronicles commentary for a series abbreviated NLT by
Tyndale and Wheaton and a commentary on Psalms for a series called LXXC
with Brill, Leiden. I have no idea what either series is.] As of this
writing, I still don't know who will do the NICOT Chronicles, but this
doesn't seem to be that. [Update: See the list below for the assignments for some of the above.]

Duane
Christensen will be doing Nahum for the Anchor Bible series. That
commentary was originally assigned to someone else whose name slips me.
Christensen did the Word volumes on Deuteronomy, and most of his work
has been well accepted. He developed a controversial view of
Deuteronomy as a song, and those elements of his commentary haven't won
much support, but the rest of his work is highly regarded. I imagine
this will be as good as the other Anchor Bible minor prophet
commentaries, which are some of the best in the series.

The
Baker Commentary on the Old Testament Wisdom and Psalms (BCOTWS) is a
brand new series. As far as I know, Richard Hess's commentary on the
Song of Songs is the only one out. Last time I checked Baker's site,
they hadn't announced any particular volumes by other people, but I
found names for the entire rest of the series. Further volumes are
scheduled. Tremper Longman will be doing Job and Proverbs (Update:
Proverbs is now out). John Goldingay will be doing Psalms. Craig G.
Bartholomew will be doing Ecclesiastes. I guess this means they won't
be covering Lamentations, which I might have thought could fit into a
series like this, but then Psalms isn't mentioned either, and I doubt
they'd not do that withg the name of the series being what it is. [Update:
Tremper Longman says plans are afoot for further series on the historical books and the Pentateuch.]

Jeremy Pierce has a fantastic post on forthcoming commentaries. This details who is down to write missing or replacement volumes for a large number of excellent commentary series. It has also been slowly developing into the authoratitive resource on forth Read More

I have been meaning to update my links to other blogs for quite some time now, and I have finally got round to making a few changes. There are a few more to be added, but I will mention a few now, and perhaps some more in a future post.
First is my fri Read More

Amazon lists the NAC Ephesians as David Dockery, and John Glynn's commentary review (I believe) mentioned his name with it as well. I know I've seen it from multiple sources. They must have originally contracted it to him and then switched it for some reason. I'm discovering that that happens fairly often in commentary series.

I'll update the post to reflect this information. For future reference, I'll do that with any further information people give me, so if you notice someone pointing out something wrong with the post that isn't wrong with the post it may be because I fixed it after they left the comment.

I knew one of the people working on James for either BECNT or NICNT had died, and I knew McKnight had taken over that project. I put him down for the wrong one. Donald Verseput, who was assigned to the NICNT series for James, did indeed die not too long ago, and McKnight is taking over for him. Dan McCartney is, as far as I can tell, still around and working on the BECNT James.

For some of the stronger NT contributions from the original version, the authors remain unchanged---Carson on Matthew, Liefeld on Luke, Longenecker on Acts, Murray Harris on 2 Cor, Alan Johnson on Rev.

Doug, where is the breakdown of authors on the Zondervan website? All I can find is the list of which ones are in which volume, and it doesn't seem to match up to the number of books covered in all the cases. Are you just extrapolating from those listings?

According to Tremper Longman's CV, he's got a number of projects whose series I can't tell. He says he's doing Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs for a Tyndale series, but I don't know if that's a replacement for the two volumes already in that series or for another series that I've heard rumors about. He lists the Baker Proverbs volume as 2005 and Job as 2007. He's also doing Jeremiah and Lamentations for NIBC. He has Exodus for Eerdmans, due Dec 06. Is this NICOT? Carpenter's got pulled away from that series for some reason, to be published as a stand-alone from the same publisher. He's doing Job, Amos, and Micah for the EBC revision. How does this guy do so much?

Silva is listed in the list of forthcoming volumes just before the title page in Schreiner's Romans commentary. They've since removed the forthcoming list, since too many of them have changed. I guess this is just another that I hadn't heard about. The Colossians PNTC is another one I didn't know about. The list I saw had Gerald Hawthorne for that one.

Hi Jeremy, you obviously spent a lot of work on this. Here are some additions/corrections I am aware of:

NICOT Psalms will probably end up being more than one volume. Waltke's Proverbs was supposed to be one, but they extended it when he submitted over the word count he was given. I imagine the same will happen with psalms.

NICOT Chronicles: Keith Bodner

Hermeneia Chronicles: Ralph Klein

The NLT that Boda is working on is a commentary for the New Living Translation geared for a popular audience.

Apollos Chronicles is Rodney Duke

I am doing the EBC Chronicles, and while I have a list of other contributors I don't think I am supposed to make it public! I can say that my colleague in Edmonton, Jerry Shepherd, is doing the Ecclesiates replacement (he is also working on part of the NAC Psalms).

I hope that Armerding will get the NICOT volume on Judges out, though I know he was also assigned the WBC on Judges, which was taken away from him.

Hossfeld and Zenger are doing the Hermeneia on Psalms; the first excellent volume just came out (Psalms 2)

I think that is all I know... I remember chatting with Boda at CSBS about the psalms project he is working on, but I can't recall what it was for specifically (I'll ask him next time we chat and let you know).
Nice blog BTW -- just discovered it with this post. You may be interested in my blog (new since April): Codex Blogspot

Wasn't Carl Armerding originally working on the Word Biblical Commentary on Judges? I've been waiting for this for several years now - a good detailed commentary on this book is certainly overdue IMHO.

Armerding was replaced by Butler by the publishers of the WBC series, apparently because he wasn't making enough progress quickly enough. NICOT agreed to take his work in their series instead. I'm not sure how that happened, because Barry Webb was supposed to be doing the NICOT on Judges. Maybe the same thing happened to him with them.

Daniel Block's commentary in the NAC series on Judges-Ruth is very good, in my opinion, one of the best in that series in my experience. Highly recommended. A good exposition to go with it is D. Ralph Davis's little book on Judges; lots of character, exegetically sound, great for devotional work or preaching.

The elders of my congregation used Block's commentary on Judges a few years ago, and they thought it was terrible. The one who did the most teaching thought he displayed a serious lack of imagination in reconstructing the situation behind the text, and both of the two elders who gave me reasons why they didn't like it said they thought his comments just didn't fit with what the text says. Of course, they didn't think there was really anything better on Judges.

Here's what I've been able to find on the Two Horizons series. If I had to guess who would do Galatians, I'd guess N.T. Wright, because he authored the Galatians chapter in the book introducing this series. That's more than speculation, but I wouldn't count on it.

I'm guessing Joel Green is doing I Peter. His vita says he's working on a theological commentary on I Peter and a full-scale commentary on Acts, which would be the replacement for F.F. Bruce's NICNT. Since he's one of the editors of the series, it's likely that he's referring to the Two Horizons volume on I Peter.

They're also going to be doing the Old Testament, edited by Gordon McConville and Craig Bartholemew.

These ones I know, assuming I can trust people's vitae and reports in various newsletters that Google turned up:

just wondering...I read in an old WBC that Joel Green was doing Acts, then in a latter one it was being reasigned (clearly to Walton). Joel Green though is now writing one on acts for NICNT. any thoughts?

Although it counts for little i heard, or read, Goldingay saying he was enjoying working on a big commentary on Second Isaiah.

Dear Jeremy:
Great work snooping down forthcoming commentaries! Kregel is coming out with an exegetical/expositional series called KECOT edited by Bob Chisholm of Dallas Seminary. He's doing Judges/Ruth(due 2007, and they are talking to Allen Ross about Psalms. It will follow the idea of Chisholm's book, From Exegesis to Exposition (Baker). I'm working on a revision of my survey for 2007.
Sincerely,
John Glynn
Commentary & Reference Survey (Kregel, 2003)
81 Perry Ave.
Stoughton, MA 02072
(781) 341-4515

Distinctive Features
Since competition for commentaries is keen, it is essential that a new series provide a convincing rationale for its existence. The most outstanding distinctive of KECOT is that each exegetical unit includes preaching strategies that grow out of the preceding exegetical analysis and reflect the overall message of the book. Rather than focusing exclusively on exegesis and expecting the expositor to build his own sermon based on it, KECOT goes one step further to provide guidance on how the preacher moves from exegesis to exposition.

Another distinctive is that the scholar and student will benefit immeasurably from the readable and rigorous exegesis, which is based on a close analysis of the original text. While the commentary will interact with scholarly literature and address technical issues, it will focus on the message of each literary unit and of the book as a whole, showing how each unit contributes to the book’s overall message and themes.
11/07 Psalms (2 vols.)
11/07 Judges/Ruth (Robert Chisholm)
11/08 Proverbs/Ecclesiastes/Song of Songs (Gordon Johnston)
11/09 Genesis
11/10 Isaiah (2 vols.)
11/11 Daniel

Goldingay is doing two volumes on Isaih 40-55 for the ICC (T & T Clark). Luke-Revelation New Testament assignments for thr revised EBC is now posted at Zondervan (i. e., Liefeld and David Pao on Luke, Harrison and Hagner on Romans)and due out in Dec 2005 thru the middle of 2006. Gene Carpenter's Deuteronomy is actually an entry in the Zondervan Bible Bkgnd Comm. (on the OT (forthcoming). Note that Richard Hess is doing Job for HCOT (Jeremy has it listed).

I was reading a book entitled Covenant Theology: Contemporary Approaches ed. Mark J Cartledge and David Mills, one of the contributors being a Mark Bonnington, who I have never heard of but is Tutor in NT at Cramner Hall, St John's College, University of Durham. His Phd thesis has been published by Paternoster, entitled Antioch Episode of Galatians 2 in History. According to the contributors info in the front of the book he is 'writing a commentary on Paul's frist epistle to the Corinthians in the Between Two Horizons series (Eerdmans)'.

I eamield Mark Bonnington and confirmed he is writing 1 Corintians for Two Horizons. n regard to The Antich Episode in Gal.2 he wrote: Food-sharing and commensality between Jews and Gentiles followed clear patterns requiring Jewish avoidance of the dangers of table fellowship with pagans but allowing it in clearly delineated circumstances to the advantage of the Jewish people. Statements that Jews did or did not eat with gentiles is too simplistic an analysis. Early gentile Christian devotion to the God of Israel created a complicated new category of people and missonary motivation within a Jewish Christian subculture exactly the kind of positive motivation that impelled the kind of table fellowship we see in Antioch. Early Christianty thus gives rise to new opportunities and problems on the Jew/gentile interface that non-Christian Jews read within their own framework as unacceptable risk. On this Paul and Peter found themselves on one page against James, though Peter compromised in practice against his better instincts. Thus Paul claims Peter on his side in Galatia against those insisting on circumcison.

I'm looking for a good entry-level commentary to 1 Corinthians (Fee is too massive!), and am trying to decide between Craig Blomberg's NIVAC one and Alan Johnson's new one in the IVP NT series. Anyone care to recommend one over the other, or comment on their relative merits?

Blomberg came out relatively early in the NIVAC series, and like many early volumes, is slimmer than subsequent volumes. Johnson did an excellent commentary on Romans for Moody and recently did over his Revelation for the revised EBC (Zondervan). His Corinthians is slightly shorter than Blomberg, but minus the NIV text. A tossup.

I have not been able to find much about the LXX commentary series from Brill except their web page brill.nl/m_catalogue_sub6_id21645.htm. However there is another commentary series on the LXX launched by the NETS project team. The names of the commentators have been announced. Full details on ccat/sas.upenn.edu/ioscs/commentary

C. Clifton Black is no longer doing the commentary on Matthew in the NT Library. David DeSilva is doing 1 Peter in the Eerdman's Critical Commentary. And, John Painter is doing the Gospel of John in the Socio-Rheterical series.

Yes, I noticed that last week. I think I only got one or two new things from it, but it does let us know a few that are going to be appearing soon that we wouldn't otherwise have known about (e.g. Davids on II Peter and Jude).

I have all of those in my list except the Davies one, because I don't have that series in the list. Would that be the Mentor series or another one? I believe Mentor is published by Christian Focus. It's harder to get this side of the pond, so I don't know much about it.

The Christian Focus commentary series (Focus on the Bible) is a bit like the Bible Speaks Today but is written with a broader audience in mind. They're conservative evangelical in outlook. All of Dale Ralph Davies commentaries are excellent. He seems to be working his way through the Old Testament historical books. He has a real gift for bringing the stories to life in their historical context, and applying them in practical and sensible ways.

I do know the Focus on the Bible series. I looked at Paul Gardner's II Peter and Jude through inter-library loan. I thought it was much thinner for an epistle than the BST ones I've looked at (Acts, Romans, James, I Peter) and more like the really thin OT ones like Ecclesiastes and Jeremiah/Lamentations by Kidner or Webb's Isaiah.

I've been exchanging emails with Craig Keener and he tells me his Acts for Eerdmans will be freestanding like his Matthew and John. It's still quite a ways off, but Acts is right up his alley. I've submitted the revision to my Commentary & Reference Survey to Kregel. It should appear late this year.

I got the Revised Expositor's Bible Commentary vol 13 (Heb - Rev) a couple of weeks ago. The layout is really nicely done, and it looks like being quite a cost-effective series to purchase covering the whole Bible in just 13 volumes (works out considerably cheaper than series like BST). They still contain the NIV text, although R T France seems more interested in commenting on the TNIV.

It also looks like they've deliberately published Thielman's NT Theology and Waltke's OT Theology in the same format perhaps intentionally to compliment the commentary series.

I'm not sure what you mean by the format, but I noticed that the Thielman NT Theology and the Carson/Moo NT Intro have a similar look and cover style. The cover style has appeared already with the Dillard/Longman OT Intro and Grudem's Systematic Theology. I imagine Longman's revision will have the new internal style too.

I didn't even know Waltke's OT Theology was going to be out this decade, never mind this year. His website sounded to me as if it's a long way off. Amazon-UK has a cover shot of it, and Zondervan is listing it on their website, but the US Amazon site isn't listing it at all. That's a little strange, isn't it?

This is going to be in the forthcoming revision of my commentary survey.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank two fellow students at Dallas Theological Seminary who provided invaluable data-entry help for my first three self-published editions of my survey back in the day when I was a computer illiterate: John Day and Barry Gin.

Also, a debt is owed to Jeremy Pierce of the Parableman website for his comprehensive listing of forthcoming commentaries. (http://parablemania.ektopos.com/archives/2005/08/forthcoming_com.html).

I am further indebted to Dr. Robert Chisholm for my third-semester class on Hebrew exegesis. There, most students learned that gladhanding papers wouldn’t suffice. Dr. Chisholm taught me the meaning of true exegesis and that standard references are not always right.

Hey, Jonathan, wonderful work. And thanks for posting updates on my commentary surveys. I have one suggestion. If you would like to make your website even more helpful, you could post the same info above in a book by book fashion.

My revised survey may be out by national ETS in November. They're typesetting it now. It'll bre a bout 25% longer (400+ pages). Thanks for asking, Lane. Jeremy, grteat work on listing the commentaries by book. You are truly a brother-in-arms.

Regarding Psalms 2 (NIVAC): It was discovered after Wilson died that he had actually done very little, so Grant is essentially starting from scratch. Thus, the designated author, as far as I know right now, will be only Jamie Grant (M.A. Reformed Theological Seminary, Ph.D. University of Gloucestershire),Lecturer in Biblical Studies at Highland Theological College, Dingwall, Scotland.

Hall Harris, who has already published an unheralded commentary on 1-3 John (Biblical Studies Press, 2003), has now produced An Exegetical Commentary on John which is available free online at http://www.bible.org/page.asp?page_id=1149

Though not as daunting as the decline of the nuclear family in society, an area of particular concern for the church is the decline in literacy. Indeed, many Christian colleges now require English of incoming freshman who typically demonstrate an eighth-grade command of the language. Pastors present and future are increasingly faced with the temptation to “dumb-down” messages while, at the same time, remaining culturally relevant.

How does the present state of Christian publishing relate to the church’s predicament? First, and most positively, the quality of Christian resources has never been better. Particularly in the past 15 years, evangelicals have caught up with liberals in providing topflight exegetical and expositional commentaries and references. Second, there have also been a burgeoning development of applicational commentaries to aid pastors in illustrations.

In our seminaries, students have been the chief benefactors of this upward trend, being better-schooled than at any other time in American and British religious history. What stands in the way of this advance?

First and foremost (and forgive me if you fall into this category), too many pulpits are filled by pastors who lack the gift of preaching, and have not yet been able to avail themselves of the advances in our scholarship. Of course, this is being partly remediated by the progress of seminarians who are now graduating to larger pulpits. However, politically, the drafting of the most capably academic and spiritually-gifted seminarians is still prevented by a system that still rewards experience over ability.

It is understandable why a pulpit committee would be reluctant to appoint the inexperienced over against the safer choices. But the consequence is the perpetuation of mediocrity. What purpose the rapid advance of scholarship if its effects are not allowed to trickle down?

Those spiritually gifted to preach who are better-trained than any of their predecessors should be the guardians of how best to communicate a culturally relevant message to an increasingly illiterate constituency. It’s been my job to suggest the best references. It’s the church’s job to place men in the pulpit who will benefit from them.

John Evans' commentary review has the Esther Hermeneia listed for Fox. Do you have anything to suggest that your information is more reliable (i.e. from the publisher, series editor, or author)? Evans is not always right on forthcoming commentaries, but I believe he doesn't list anything unless he gets it from a pretty reliable source.

Gus Konkel, professor of Hebrew at Providence Theological Seminary in Manitoba, has written one of the most paradigmatic (at times) applicational commentaries in the NIVAC series (Zondervan) in 1 & 2 Kings. Though typically associated with Chronicles-Esther, Konkel follows the Hebrew pattern of associating Kings with Joshua, Judges, and Samuel. He truly shows how Kings is prophetic literature, not just history. Not only is Konkel the cleanest manuscript I've ever proofread, but in various moments his eloquence is absolutely transcendant. Check out pp. 316-19. A masterpiece of application!

I should have mentioned, Zondervan promises Konkel by the Nov. ETS. It'll be 650 pp. Also, ordinarily I’m not one to recommend books on Christian culture, but here is a book every Christian should read. Jeffery Sheler, a fundamentalist turned mainstreamer, visits Saddleback Church, Wheaton College, the Creation festival (an outdoor contemporary Christian rock/folk fest), political operatives in Washington, and goes on a mission trip to Guatemala with a youth group. Believers: A Journey into Evangelical America (Viking) is much more fair than Randall Balmer’s Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory, positing that there’s a major disconnect between Christian leaders and moderately minded “common” folk. It's been positively endorsed by former ABC News religious correspondent and former DTS employee, Peggy Weymeyer.

Actually, Jeremy, Hill on Chronicles is longer. Hill has 699 pages (including indexes), and Arnold has 681. Actual text of commentary has Hill at 658 (minus the appendixes, which would add another 14 pages); Arnold at 653.

I discovered that after I wrote that comment. I'm not sure why I though Arnold was so much longer. Maybe it's because I've used it enough to make the cover really loose, while Hill is largely untouched still and thus fitting much more tightly to the pages. Hill really does look thinner on my shelf, but it's not as much as I had thought.

Yes, I have Stuart's Exodus commentary. I've read about half of Stuart (through ch.19). It's excellent in almost every way, except that he hardly ever shows any recognition of Propp and Houtman, which are currently the two most important academic commentaries on Exodus. He does pay attention to all the other important works, and it's a great commentary in pretty much every other way.

I don't always remove commentaries from this list very quickly. One reason is that people may want to know about volumes that have just come out that they may not have heard about yet. I generally try to leave volumes in the list until at least six months after they come out. I usually indicate the date for volumes I know the date for, and then commentaries that are out will have some signal that they may already have appeared. Notice that I did this with Stuart (although in this case the month is wrong; it came out in June, not August).

Amazon is wrong on Larry Walker. It's Gary Smith, and it's coming out next year sometime. John Glynn got that information direct from the publisher. Amazon has been listing Walker since long before the change in contract. That entry is outdated.

George Guthrie told me that he gave up the NAC I Corinthians commentary due to not having enough time to do all the things he'd committed to doing. That one fell by the wayside. He's working on II Corinthians for BECNT right now, which is probably at least a few years off. I don't know who has been selected to do the NAC for I Corinthians. They may not even have reassigned it yet.

Thank you for your extensive ongoing conversation with the publishing world of Bible commentaries.

I mistakenly thought I had a pretty good grasp of the material, since I run a larger theological seminary bookstore in Germany and stock half the inventory in English. However, your work presents the daunting task of predicting the future in a way that's extremely usable.

Having just returned from the ETS and AAR-SBL conferences in Washington, and the endless piles of new titles in the publishers' exhibition, it was a blessing to stumble onto your website (and blog).

Many of my customers and interested colleagues will soon hear about your link.

Thought you would like to know that WBC were selling David Clines’ commentary on Job 21-37 at the SBL conference a couple of weeks ago. It's over a thousand pages! A friend talked to Clines who said that the commentary on the last chapters of Job will be done next year. Whew, we don't have to wait another 15+ years!

It might still be October 2008 when we see the third volume. If he's planning to be done next year, then it will probably be another year after that before it's published. It takes about a year between the author's final manuscript and the publication date for this kind of serious academic volume.

Paul Jackson, a colleague of George Guthrie at Union University,is doing 1 Corinthians for the NAC. Ron Kernaghan (IVPNTC) on Mark, N. Kiuchi on Leviticus (Apollos), and the revised Matthew 1-7 by Ulrich Luz (Hermeneia) will appear shortly. John Currid's Deuteronomy in the EPSC series (Evangelical Press) has appeared.

He has only Numbers to complete his coverage of the Pentateuch (Gen 2 vols, Exodus 2 vols, Leviticus). This series is especially good for laymen.

I just rec'd Job by Samuel Balentine in the SHBC series (Smyht & Helwys). Moderately liberal,it's 750 pages in 8 x 11 format! Hard to believe he once taught at Southeastern Baptist Theo. seminary.

I've seen very little discussion of the "Concordia Commentary" series. See the publisher's web site for a list of the currently available volumes. This takes a very strictly confessional approach, as is typical of the LCMS. I saw reviews of two of the volumes recently, in the Catholic Biblical Quarterly, which trashed the books for not showing enough respect for current Biblical scholars. Can anyone say more?

Fernando, I don't know much about this series except that it's Lutheran. It's not really discussed in detail in any of the commentary resources I have. Some might mention it without saying much about it, and some don't even mention it. It doesn't seem to be at the center of scholarly discussion, but I can't say any more than that.

That's not trustworthy enough for me, since Amazon often lists dates for years without something coming out. But I expect this just appeared there. I haven't seen it before, and a search of his name would have turned it up. Since it's not up at the Eerdmans site, and they do list some forthcoming books for April and May, I'm going to wait until I know of a confirmation from the publisher. Another source lists it for fall 2007.

SAVE $$$ on COMMENTARIES: I've just bought 50 commentaries on most books of the Bible, after having compared various "Book Purchasing Comparison" websites (they're like shopping search engines). By far the most comprehensive is Bookfinder4U (I have NO affiliation with them), as they list the best prices on any book by comparing 130 on-line booksellers (like Amazon, Buy.com, eBay [buy-it-now listings], Powell's, Alibris, etc.). Go to http://www.bookfinder4u.com/book_find_advanced_search.htm, enter the title and author, and you've just found the best price in America! Happy shopping.

As a genre sensitive preacher, I think we need more commentaries on narrative books of the Bible which help the preacher do three things (1) select a proper self-contained unit, (2) determine the main point/purpose of the story, because (3) it is the main point of the narrative that we are to apply to life.

Too many commentaries focus only on the minute analysis of the text, which is very important, but don't provide much help in terms of meeting any (much less all) of the three needs identified above.

Many commentaries, such as NIVAC’s Genesis (Walton) and Luke (Bock) rarely state the main point/purpose of narrative passages and in their application sections their “applications” are almost always random thoughts and reflections, not real applications.

I see the greatest need, in terms of the 3 above stated needs of the preacher, with the books of Job and Acts (and some of the other smaller narratives like Ruth and Jonah).

As for Job, is the whole book one self-contained unit or can we legitimately derive points for application from smaller units? As for Acts, what is the main point for the stories in contains? Is it mainly "The Holy Spirit expands the church in this direction" or is there something more? It’s better to deal with the real main point, however seemingly bland and repetitive than to make up points and applications.

Of course, even many homileticians take the wrong approach here. Many approach the main point and application of narrative passages by first universalizing the plot line, then creating applications based on this hermeneutical error ("When you face the same/similar situation that biblical characters face in a story, God will respond to you the same/similar way he responded to them" (see the, in many ways very useful, book by Kent Edwards, Effective First-Person Biblical Preaching, pp. 64-67 and Steven Matthewson's The Art of Preaching Old Testament Narrative, pp. 104-107.

I should mention a few relatively good models: J.B. Green’s NICNT Luke and Longman’s NIVAC Daniel. I look forward to Green’s NICNT Acts.

Some of the NIVAC volumes are better than others on that score. Jobes on Esther and Keener on Revelation are wonderful, and Blomberg on I Corinthians is good (although extremely brief). I suspect Enns on Exodus is good on this score, although he spends most of his time in the second and third sections talking about everywhere else in the Bible that talks about the issues he pulls out, which I find annoying and not the purpose of a commentary. Hill on Chronicles does seem much more random in picking out issues tangentially related to the text (but it's excellent on Original Meaning). So they vary by contributor.

Have you seen Leithart's new Kings commentary for Brazos? Carson's two-volume devotional For the Love of God does exactly what you want, but it doesn't cover every chapter, and it has to leave aside some issues for space reasons. I absolutely loved it, though.

I have heard lots of criticism of Green's NICNT on Luke. It's supposed to be good on narrative issues, but it often ignores most of what a good commentary will do. I suppose it might be helpful as a supplement to a standard commentary, but I wouldn't want to teach through Luke with just Green.

Thanks for your thoughts. I'll check out those commentaries. My biggest beef is with commentaries on purely narrative passages and books. What good is a commentary on Acts or any book if it covers everything but the author's intended purpose?

In Green's case, sure he needs to be supplemented for critical issues and exegetical papers, but as for the point of the passage and narrative effects, I thought he was terrific (at least in Luke 1-2). You could say he supplemented the other commentaries.

Eisenbrauns is usually right about things like that, since they won't list it unless the publisher announces it to them, but this is the first I've heard of it. It's amazing how quickly he can produce such well-respected commentaries, even given that he's retired from teaching.

Jeremy,
Do you have any informations about revisions of WBC for: Tate (Psalms), Williamson (Ezra-Nehemiah), Goldingay (Daniel), Longenecker (Galatians) and William Lane (Hebrew)? If they will be revised, it’s better for me to wait until the revisions is finished. Thanks

I haven't heard anything about revisions for those volumes. That doesn't mean they're not doing them, but the fact that I've heard about a bunch and not those is some evidence that they're not doing them all that soon. Their most recent update to the list is here, but I know it's incomplete, since it doesn't have Smalley's I-III John revisions, which I believe is due out late this year.

Chris, it looks as if this series isn't really commentaries but more grammatical handbooks, according to the Amazon reviews of the Acts and I-III John volumes that are already out. Would you agree with that?

Thank you very much for the information about forthcoming coomentaries: You can add for the list of Old Testament Library (OTL):
Genesis- David L. Petersen (Replacement)
Judges - Susan Niditch - (Replacement)
Jeremiah - Leslie C. Allen - (Replacement)

I can't remember. Some of it might have come from their own website. I know some of it came from faculty websites promoting forthcoming works, and some came from people leaving comments here of similar information they found (or from the mouth of the person writing it). John Glynn used to be a great source, since he had contacts with publicity people with most of the important publishers. Search the comments above and on the other post that orders this same information by book, and you'll find some of that. It's possible some came from someone who emailed it to me who is in the know. Some of it might not be all that recent, since I don't remember where it all came from.

The Old Testament volumes will debut in 2008. Eighteen volumes are currently planned, with Brueggemann authoring the two-volume commentary on Genesis. The books will be aimed primarily at laity and students, though—as with Wright’s volumes on the New Testament— clergy will find them quite helpful as well.

I would like to inform you about a developing commentary series with joint authors from Asia and the 'west' Asia Bible Commentary Series. It is good to know serious scholarship is being done in Asia (outside of Europe and North America)

IN PROGRESS Athena Evelyn Gorospe is associate professor in Old Testament Studies at Asian Theological Seminary in Manila, Philippines. She is currently working on a commentary on the book of Judges for the Asia Bible Commentary series.

They're also listing a bunch of others from the original authors, but it doesn't say if it's a new cover with the same contents or an actual revision. This is an awful lot of volumes to be coming out at once if they're all revisions. But if they're not revisions, why are they listing them with new publication dates?

I was hoping that they would be revisions, but since some of the authors are now dead, it looks like they are just being reprinted. Only a couple appear to have new authors. (by the way, you can look at the whole series by incrementing the number on the end of the URL if you are interested. the pages you get to may just be placeholders though so I guess it is possible that there will be more revised volumes in the end)

Well, Morris died recently enough that it's possible he did a revision that they've been sitting on.

The entries are probably unchanged from the original ones, because the series entry still has Baldwin listed for Esther. The link does go to the new one by Reid, though, so they're using the same URL location for the new ones as they update the page. The Ezra-Nehemiah page still has Kidner listed as the author, and I know that one's being replaced by Mark Boda.

You said a few authors are new? The only one I see is Reid. Who else did you see?

I haven't heard anything. Some publishers list publication dates far enough ahead of time that they're totally unreliable, and that's especially true with detailed academic works that might take longer to put together than the publisher hopes.

Oh, I see what happened. I received an announcement about the paperback and took it to be a new release. I better remove that. What's strange is that the information I had before this announcement had different authors doing these books. I must have received that information after 2002, when the hardcover was published, because I didn't even start blogging until late 2003. Weird.

I'm not sure what that means. I'm pretty sure Hossfeld and Zenger have actually published all three volumes in German, so it's just a matter of completing the translation for them to be published in English. I'd be surprised if the publisher has decided not to do that, because the first volume has been well-received, and the German work was well-received before that.

I do know that this series isn't above putting out two different commentaries on the same book. The only instances when it's done this is when they have an older classic that's still a standard but wanted to do a new one with a very different approach, and then they keep both in print. They've done this for Amos, for instance. Maybe they've decided to do that in a case where both commentaries are more recent.

On the other hand, it's possible he's just listed the wrong series, or maybe he had a contract with them and no longer does but hasn't updated his website. There's no sure way to know without asking him or the publisher.

I'm just reporting the date Thomas Nelson is listing on their website. I don't know if we can have a good idea of when it was reassigned, though. Just because they're now getting around to reporting on their website that it's been reassigned doesn't mean the reassignment just occurred. It's been a long time since it was reassigned to Belleville, and I don't know how long they gave her before moving to someone else (or before she voluntarily backed out, whichever took place).

Thanks for the link! He actually says he's looking at finishing it by the end of next summer, which means it will probably be out by around the same time the next year, 2001. Publishers take a full year to get this kind of academic book into print once they have the final copy in their hands, even after all editing is complete.

I just got a copy of John McHugh on John 1-4 in the ICC. He has passed away and they turned in all that he had into that volume (which did not include an introduction), so it's safe to say he won't be writing the rest.

Greetings, if it's a mistake to note that Hermeneia will publish two commentaries on 2 Corinthians? Does one of these perhaps refer to 1 Corinthians, as the old Conzellmann one would be good to update.

As far as I know, each source meant to list a commentary on I Corinthians, so one of them is probably not doing it anymore. I don't remember where I got each from, so I don't know for sure which was the first one I had heard about. But I suppose it's possible that one had listed it as II Cor when it was I Cor.

Thomas Nelson has posted that you will not be able to collect all the WBCNT until 2013. Posting that Vol. 37a Acts will be in Nov. 2011, and Vol. 37b Acts will be in Nov. 2013 along with the Vol. 39 I Corinthians.

Also, are you planning to spring clean your forthcoming list at any point? Some have been available for a couple of years. (not that I'm complaining - this is one of my favourite blog posts of all time & I visit regularly)

I tend to be more interested in making sure newer information gets added than I am in removing ones that are out. One of the reasons is that I'm faster to add things here than I am to the posts I've done on individual series, because it's harder to locate the pages to edit them, and this one is saved in my bookmarks. I don't want to lose the information, and if I just delete it I might not get it into one of those pages, and then I don't have the contributors to all the volumes. So I prioritize keeping information over keeping this page limited just to still-forthcoming volumes. I should try to clean it up sometime, but I don't think I'll be able to devote a long period of time all at once.

I haven't heard anything further on Hendel. His most recent online CV says the volume on chs.1-11 is in progress. It doesn't give an expected completion or publication date. These things are notoriously hard to predict.

I haven't heard anything at all about a successor for Weinfeld. My first thought at seeing that was that Jacob Milgrom was completing it, but I looked and discovered that it's Greenberg's Ezekiel that he's finishing. He'd be a good person if they can get him to do Deuteronomy after that, but I haven't heard anything.

I explain two comments up why I quickly add new information to this list but don't remove it quickly.

Did you read the blurbs? Since it seems most likely to me that Galatians is Paul's earliest surviving letter, I'm curious whether it's Thiselton himself or just the person writing the editorial blurb who thinks the Thessalonian letters are Paul's first epistles. That's a pretty controversial statement to unload into an innocent little blurb plugging a book unless the author of the book himself endorses the claim, but Thiselton doesn't seem to me to be the type to go for the North Galatian, anti-Acts, late-date theory.

I suppose I should register my objection here while I'm on this to calling that series commentaries. They aren't really commentaries on the biblical text. They're more summaries of commentaries across the ages. It's more comparable to the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture from InterVarsity, except that you're not getting the primary sources directly. You're getting a commentator from our day reporting to us in our own language and conceptual scheme what the earlier commentators had to say. There are strengths and weaknesses of both, I suppose, but I prefer commentaries proper to commentaries on commentaries. Of course, many academic commentaries that are supposed to be commentaries proper are really almost commentaries on commentaries anyway.

I'll check his intro to Paul when I get home. I don't think he dates Galatians late though (interestingly Fee does). The blurb did say his early letters, not his earliest, so there's still room for Galatians to be among the early ones.

I actually haven't looked at this series yet. They've never had one out on a book that I was studying at the time. I wish they were a little cheaper. I do use the ACCS series in my Galatians study. I like it. I actually think that this could be an excellent resource. Thiselton did this type of thing to a smaller degree in his 1 Corinthians commentary and I really enjoyed it there. I think that there is some folly in only reading commentaries from the near past, but I understand why some pastors don't because of the constraints of time.

So Thiselton does put 1 and 2 Thessalonians first. Galatians follows them somewhere between 52-55 on Paul's third missionary journey. He dates 1 Corinthians in 53 (these dates come from a little table at the start of the book). He's very non-commital on the North/South Galatian hypothesis and there is no sustained discussion of the matter (he refers people to read Bruce for more info).

According to Kregel's website--see under CATALOGS--Allen Ross's first volume on the Psalms (1-72 [992 pages!]) will be available January 31, 2011.
www.kregel.com/ME2/dirsect.asp?sid=9979A7C6E8214AACB371C117B49521C6&nm=CATALOGS

The controversy surrounding gal’s date and destination is indeed a very confusing issue, and even scholarly discussions are often unclear (partly because of apologetic interests re historicity of Acts). Anyway, scholars are divided according to 3 dating possibilities:
1. early, pre-council dating (Gal2=Acts11), ca. AD48, making Gal the earliest Pauline letter; requires S Gal
2. early, post-council dating (Gal2=Acts15), early AD 50s, slightly later than or contemporary with Thess letters; requires S. Gal
3. late, post-council dating (Gal2=Acts15), mid AD 50s, same time frame as Cor and Rom; can be S Gal or N Gal.

As you can see, holding a South gal theory does not in itself determine the dating at all. However, Jeremy Pierce seems to have made the following identifications:
(A) south gal = an early, pre-council dating (i.e. option one).
(B) An early date = pre-council dating.
These are popular—but INCORRECT. The fact is, S. gal does NOT imply an early date; it only ALLOWS an early date; whereas N Gal will only allow a late date. Moreover, even when one accepts an early date, it can be pre-council (acts 11 = Gal 2) or post-council (acts 15 = gal 2). Conversely, if you hold to a post-council dating, it does not commit you to accepting N Gal. The issue of date and destination is related but far from identical.
In fact, quite a number of prominent evangelicals hold to a late date (option 3) but do not commit to either a South or North gal destination (e.g. Silva, Fee, Garland).

Apart from very conservative evangelicals, hardly any scholars accept option one. Scholars like Dunn prefer S Gal and an early date, but hold option two (i.e. post-council). So they hold Gal to be early, but not the earliest. Dunn identifies Gal 2 with Acts 15 rather than Acts 11.
Interestingly, the 2 relatively recent books on Paul published by Moody and Holman (which are very conservative publishers) argue for late dating, but one prefers S Gal (Picirilli) and the other prefers N Gal (Polhill). And judging from recent publication, I think evangelical scholars are less committed to option 1.
My general impression is that 1) for non- and moderate evangelicals, about 60% hold to N Gal (R Brown says it is still the dominant theory among scholars, though of course he disregards evangelical scholars), 20% S and 20% non-commital, but they are almost unanimous in post-council dating, and 2) for conservative evangelicals (i.e. who have high regard for Acts’ historicity), perhaps as many as 70% argue for S Gal with pre-council dating.

This is a comment on a post about forthcoming commentaries, not a debate about theories of when different books were written. If it had been the latter, I would have discussed the issue much more substantially and without the shorthand of paying heed to the most common views while ignoring minority views. I'm certainly aware of the possible combinations of views.

Do you consider Ben Witherington and F.F. Bruce very conservative evangelicals? I do not. Bruce seems to me to be more aptly called a moderate conservative, and Witherington is a swing voter between being on the moderate liberal end (for an evangelical) and between being a mainstream conservative (for an evangelical). Yet both take the view that you say is only held by very conservative evangelicals.

I can see how you might think that of Doug Moo and Don Carson, although I consider them moderates. Both accept the TNIV, for example, and both are open to some aspects of the New Perspective, even if both are critical of some of the NPP's major claims. That would be enough to anathematize them among the very conservative. Both are willing to make reasonable qualifications to inerrancy based on how the biblical texts actually interpret each other, while still insisting on using the term "inerrancy". Walter Kaiser is someone I'd be more inclined to call very conservative. John MacArthur would be even more conservative than Kaiser.

I think you underestimate how many people hold the first view, probably because, like Brown, you are ignoring just how many biblical scholars there are who hold to the historicity of Acts. It was eye-opening to see Hoehner chronicle how many scholars held to Pauline authorship of Ephesians. It turned out to be 50%. Yet most scholars who denied Pauline scholarship took their view to be the consensus among scholars, which they could only do by entirely ignoring the view they happen to disagree with and pretending such scholars don't count.

It strikes me that the only real arguments for other views on the Galatians date issue make implausible or at least unmotivated assumptions. But this isn't really the place to have this discussion. I was just expressing my disappointment.

I wasn't going to touch this since it's a post on forthcoming commentaries, but I too found your comment about a late date for Galatians being 'anti-Acts' a little puzzling. I attempted to harmonize a late date for Galatians while taking Acts seriously here if you want to see how I argue (and not bog down this post).

I'll just say that I'm in complete agreement with cousin Danny, who presented everything I would have said in those comments as well or better than I would have. I'm not convinced that you can really fit a late date to the Acts account convincingly. I wasn't trying to say that every scholar who holds to a late date is anti-Acts in terms of their actual views. I do think that anyone holding to a late date is going against what we should believe if we take Acts to be truthful.

Wow, different color schemes. My guess is they've got red for the general epistles (and perhaps Revelation?), blue for Paul's epistles, and green for the gospels (and maybe Acts). I liked the red for James, so these others are going to have to grow on me.

As to publication dates, this is from an e-mail reply:
******
For Isaiah, we anticipate publishing four volumes on this large and important book. Dr. R. Reed Lessing has completed the volume on Isaiah 40-55, and we expect that it will be in print by December 2011. Dr. Lessing has begun writing on Isaiah 56-66, but his due date is seven years from now. Although the plans for Isaiah 1-39 are not firm yet, we expect that Dr. Andrew Bartelt and Dr. Paul Raabe will contribute commentary on chapters 1-39.

Dr. Michael Middendorf is hard at work on Romans 1-8. He may be done in about 4 years. After he completes that volume, we expect to contract him for Romans 9-16.

Dr. Andrew Das is our contracted author for Galatians. We hope that he may be done in about 3 years.
******

From what I have read of Andrew Steinmann's Daniel, I have generally enjoyed it (with a few disagreements). Steve Hays at Triablogue and Jim Hamilton have both said the same thing. This is a very conservative commentary series that defends inerrancy, and so, if someone wants a proven conservative resource this might be a place to look.

Bruce Winter sadly is not doing 1 Corinthians in the NCC (New Covenant Commentary):it is now bnearly in press by 1 Corinthians (New Covenant Commentary Series) By B. J. Oropeza

With respect to ZEC I H Marshall is no longer doing John but
Edward (Mickey) Klink holds a PhD in New Testament from the University of St. Andrews, and is currently associate professor of New Testament at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University, John in the Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament series (Zondervan, 2014).

Exodus: An Exegetical Commentary by Victor P. Hamilton produced by Baker unsure whether it is part of (Baker Commentary on the Old Testament Pentateuch not listed in your sets as yet) But William Tooman is definitely doing Leviticus. Baker Commentary on the Old Testament: Pentateuch. Eds. Christopher Seitz and Kenton Sparks (Baker Academic) Paula Gooder is no longer doing (2 Corinthians)in Blackwell series

I noticed that the Jewish Publication Society (JPS) commentary on Ruth (Tikva Frymer-Kensky and Tamar Cohn Eskenazi) is being offered by stores, e.g., Barnes & Noble, for shipment at the end of July this year.

I also noticed that the Berit Olam commentary on Job (Edward Greenstein) is being offered by a store (Book Depository) for delivery in August of this year.

If you haven't seen this yet, there's very little information on this series at the moment, but Eerdmans is starting a new series (The Bible in Medieval Tradition). There's one volume out now on Galatians and no information on Eerdman's site on future volumes.

Everett Fox' second volume in the Shocken Bible will be released at the end of February, 2014. The Early Prophets: Joshua, Judges, Samuel I and II, Kings I and II. Volume I, the Pentateuch was published in 1995.

I (B.P. Hall) am writing a two-volume commentary on Galatians. The first volume should be published within 1-2 months! Both volumes will be published into the brand new "Scholar's Commentary on the New Testament" (SCNT) series. Many more posts like this are sure to follow as I write more and more commentaries.

P.S. Does anyone know how to add commentaries to the "Forthcoming and Unreleased" commentaries on bestcommentaries.com?